When visiting their Rochester home in the White River Valley in winter, I'm always on the lookout for boreal species. A visit in late fall found her neighborhood full of evening grosbeaks, and a pre-Christmas delivery run on Dec. 21 turned up common redpolls at a neighbor's feeder.

Our drive up on Christmas Eve morning showed evidence of a natural event of a different kind. The finches noted above are known for periodic southward irruptions, and they're usually quite conspicuous when they make their move. Northern predators such as snowy owls, great gray owls and rough-legged hawks, given their use of open habitats, are also rather easy to find when on the move.

None of these predators have made a major thrust into our region so far, but a much less conspicuous bird, the barred owl, apparently has. I say apparently, because barred owl movements are hard to detect for a couple of reasons.

First they nest throughout Connecticut, so it's hard to tell where a given individual has originated. Second, they're forest birds that easily disappear into our large woodlands.

Evidence of a movement has accumulated over the last couple of months, mainly through sightings in places, such as metropolitan Boston, where barred owls don't usually occur. Reports logged into eBird have shown Boston sightings up significantly this year.

Some were also found perched in the open during daytime on Connecticut Chrismas Bird Counts or during scouting for the counts. There were 20 reports to eBird from Thanksgiving to Christmas, including birds in downtown New Haven and in Norwalk.

With this in mind, I had one eye on the road shoulder as we drove north on Interstate 91.

Not unexpectedly, I saw a road-killed barred owl as we passed through Rockingham, Vt. This incident alone doesn't prove I'd seen an owl on the move from rodent-poor northern areas, but it was suggestive.

So was a second one we saw on the way home, road-killed on Interstae 91 in Greenfield, Mass.

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